Christianity

It’s clear I’ve read too much on this world. There is a certain bliss in ignorance, isn’t there? I say this because in looking around, it’s easy for me to find more misery than blessing. It seems odd to me that mankind chooses to speak in the public square more of his misfortune than his fortune? Does he not know his blessings? This public square of ours – communications – has less civility than a boxing match. At least in boxing you shake hands before you proceed to pummel that next door neighbor in the ring of your existence.

Man finds passion in pointing to a myriad of causes for his misfortune. His intellect meticulously inspects and dissects; slicing at this part and that part of the organ of Man in some hope that he might animate his ailing creation – himself – into the perfection that God desires. Yet from this all, the cords that bind man together in this world are becoming more and more tangled; the tensions within society both increasing and at times overwhelming; human tsunamis that bring chaos to man’s culture.

Is there a cure; a fix, or perhaps a glue that might align us once again with one another? Fit us together once again like one of those 5000 piece puzzles of a meadow of grass and spring flowers. Are we searching for that illusive glue we have yet to find, or are we not? With glue, there is effect; but where is the cause of the glue, so we might procure the glue?Continue reading The Cause for the Spirit

Progress, by definition as a noun, refers to the movement towards either a specific goal or simply the movement in a particular direction. There are a few characteristics to progress:

First; that progress implies towards, rather than away.

Second; that progress is necessarily imbued with the idea that any movement entailed in progress is for the benefit of the mover and not to any disadvantage. Words used in defining progress include: advancement, improvement, development, and growth.

Third; that any new quality achieved through progress is considered to be superior to the previous quality.

Progress, by definition as a verb, refers more towards the idea of the movement of an object or condition without the adjudication, at the same moment, of any subjective value of good or bad.

In the modern, secular world, the average citizen has lost the appreciation of just how fundamental religious identity is to our basic existence. The secularist – remote to the religious experience all about them each and every day – sees religion as a membership in an organization; a simple choice that can be flipped with an opportunistic lifestyle, a change in schedule, or a little enlightenment. The results of such a naiveté is just beginning to roost like gargoyles on the growing discord we call diversity.

But religion is not an organization with a human leadership that shops for designer bargains at a factory-outlet store. Religion isn’t just tucked neatly within the prefrontal cortex of the brain; ready to be affected by neuroplasticity brought about by human events. Religion has demonstrated that it is much more pervasive and prevailing in all human cultures; signaling that it is embodied within every cell within every human body. It is not likely to go away with a “shoo”, or retreat to its dog house with a “bad doggie”.

Worrying about evil is, quite frankly, small potatoes in comparison to a much greater human condition that plagues the vast majority of mankind; the absence of any consciousness of the spirit.

We pursue a path of consciousness that solely imbues our intellect and passions as the arbiters of our existence, and in extension, that of God’s existence. We actually believe that what we cannot rationalize, at this moment, therefore does not exist, and man’s history has consistently demonstrated this demoralizing condition.

Let’s look at the Bible for a moment. There is an argument – a position on God’s existence – that takes on the rationalization that if the Bible is errant in its assertions or circumstances, then God must not exist. I have to ask the question, “Why?”. Critics, for purposes of convenience and certain lack of awareness of spiritual matters, equate what they can see with their eyes and then perceive from paper pages with ink imprints, as somehow possessing some form of power that dictates over God and not under God.

Man believes his intellect and passions should be the sole arbiters of truth. My simple argument against that is man’s history. Such a consideration is obviously not true given the results, and to assert that it is our intellect and our passions that has at least gotten us this far, well that I would agree with you. We have obviously put performance aside.

Recently, a good friend of mine read my essay on Pluralism & Relativism, and asked the question if I could comment on Secular Humanism. As I had started a series of moral arguments, it seemed practical that the next one may as well be on such an “ism”.

I also have to note, with great emphasis, that this essay quickly became a satire and a screed, and for that, I apologize. It just became so ridiculous examining the humanist point of view and then dealing with it in a mature and educated fashion. So I took the gutter. And while the gutter is smelly, dirty, and offensive, it still leads us to where we need to go; to the understanding of the very dangerous nature of Humanism.

In taking a hard look at Humanism, it became efficient to deal with the primary doctrines of this movement of man, and for accuracy’s sake I went to the source: The American Humanist Association (AHA). Within their website I found the three, basic humanist manifestos; generated in 1933, 1973, and 2003. Though there are other affirmations of their common goals to be found, and well worth the read, I am going to concentrate my discourse on the three manifestos as noted in order to contain the content of this essay. Yes, the devil is in the details – in this case the applications of Humanism into our American society – and I do believe it is the Devil who writes any doctrine that attempts to usurp the authority of God.